House Progressives have the best answer to Paul Ryan

House Progressives have the best answer to Paul Ryan

"The ‘Back to Work’ budget is about exactly what the name implies: Putting Americans back to work. The first sentence lays it out clearly: ‘We’re in a jobs crisis that isn’t going away.’ So that’s the budget’s top priority: fixing the jobs crisis.

It begins with a stimulus program that makes the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act look tepid: $2.1 trillion in stimulus and investment from 2013-2015, including a $425 billion infrastructure program, a $340 billion middle-class tax cut, a $450 billion public-works initiative, and $179 billion in state and local aid.

That’s…a lot of stimulus. More than Congress passed in 2009, in fact. The liberal Economic Policy Institute estimates that would be sufficient to ‘boost gross domestic product (GDP) by 5.7 percent and employment by 6.9 million jobs at its peak level of effectiveness (within one year of implementation)."

"Is the House Progressives’ budget likely? Of course not. One involved staffer described it to me as a “wish list.” But that makes it the perfect analogue to Ryan’s budget."

I hope it gets as much press, but it won't. But this is what the Dems should start the compromise with Republican's from and meet somewhere in the middle. Instead of Obama's approach of proposing the middle and then compromising (or not) to the right.